


More Than Just A Game

by gardenofmaris



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Acts of Kindness, F/M, Flirting, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Insecurity, Love Confessions, Making Out, Other, Play Fighting, Sarcasm, Video & Computer Games
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-25 16:43:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14382780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardenofmaris/pseuds/gardenofmaris
Summary: Part of the Voltron Shipping Exchage for Tumblr user KobirexLance has a surprise for Pidge, as part of a grander plan for something more





	More Than Just A Game

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kobirex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kobirex/gifts).



> Icycoldmoonprincess and SharkGirl were my invaluable betas and icycoldmoonprincess came up with the kickass title  
> I really couldn't do it without you guys<3
> 
> This is also part of the Voltron Shipping Exchange, and is my gift for tumblr user Kobirex <3  
> Hope you enjoy!!

“Hey, uh, Pidge?”

Pidge looked up from where they’d been furiously typing into their laptop screen, half paying attention to a shifty looking Lance.

“What’s up?”

“Are you really busy right now?”

Pidge glanced at their computer then up at Lance, arching an eyebrow at him. He seemed to suddenly realize how his question sounded and flushed a deep red. Looking down, he twisted his mouth a little bit and shifted his weight from one foot to another. “I just meant… Is this something you can leave and come with me?”

“Hmm…” Pidge considered, enjoying how their silence made Lance squirm. They let themselves have fun with it for a few more moments before finally letting Lance off of the hook. They saved their project and put their laptop to sleep before putting it in their bag and slinging it over their shoulder. “Alright. What do you want to show me?”

Lance grinned widely, practically vibrating in excitement. He reached over and grabbed Pidge’s hand, pulling them in the direction of the library’s exit. “It’s in your room.”

Pidge stopped, pulling Lance and narrowing their eyes at him. “And how exactly did you get into my room?”

Lance’s grin turned sheepish and he scratched the back of his neck nervously. “Uh, well…. That was Hunk, but he did it on my orders. Sorry about that.”

Pidge’s eyes narrowed even more.

“Come on. I promise that it’s totally worth the breaking and entering.”

They rolled their eyes at Lance, unable to stop the fond smile creeping up on their face. Soon, the both of them were smiling at each other in the middle of the library, warm feelings engulfing Pidge’s chest, before they realized what was happening and pulled themselves out of it.

“Whatever. Let’s just go.”

They let Lance lead them to their room, smiling at the excitement that was coming off of Lance in waves. Whatever it was, he was obviously pumped about it. It was kind of cute, they guessed.

And that was somewhere they weren’t going to go.

Their crush on Lance had started some time after revealing to both Lance and Hunk that they were biologically female, but that they preferred to go by gender neutral pronouns. Hunk had taken it in stride, being the calm, friendly soul that they were quickly growing to know Hunk as. Lance, on the other hand had been shocked much more than Pidge had expected.

They hadn’t been able to stand the way Lance had started treating them differently, the tension that had cropped up, when they had just started to really trust Lance. So they waited until Lance had a free day from classes and flight simulations and cornered him.

_ “You hurt me.” _

_ “I did?” Lance stepped back, sitting on his bed and staring up at Pidge, who had their hands curled into shaking fists at their sides. _

_ “Of course you did. You’re still hurting me.” _

_ “I- Pidge, I’m sorry. What did I do?” _

_ “You-” Hot, shameful tears fell, and Pidge wiped them away forcefully, not caring that it hurt their eyeballs they were pressing so hard. “I trusted you with one of my biggest secrets. Not even the Garrison knows I’m a girl. They think I’m a boy. And you- you- you just threw me away.” _

_ They hated the way their voice cracked, hated the way the weakness shone through, hated the way they sounded so childish in their pain. But they couldn’t stop it. The emotions were crashing through them, and they needed to let them out. _

_ “I  _ what _?” _

_ “You know what you did! You won’t hang out around me as much anymore. You won’t touch me like you used to. You’re avoiding me. I thought we were friends.” _

_ They reached forward, shoving Lance’s chest forcefully. _

_ It didn’t do much, though. All it did was give Lance an opportunity to wrap his arms around their waist and pull them close. They fell into Lance’s warm body and his arms cradled them close as he whispered apologies into their ears over and over. _

_ “I didn’t deal with that right. I’m so sorry, Pidge. I tried to deal with what I was feeling on my own so I didn’t freak you out, but all I did was hurt you.” _

_ Lance kept talking, but Pidge only felt Lance’s warmth, heard his erratic heartbeat from where their head was tucked into his neck. They shivered as Lance ran their fingers through their hair, and then suddenly the heartbeat in their ears disappeared as lips gently pressed into their forehead- _

“And we’re here!”

Pidge startled out of their memory, blinking at their door, which was suspiciously closed. “I thought you said you broke in.”

“Yeah, we did. But Hunk left when everything was done getting set up and we weren’t going to just leave your door wide open. Open your door.”

Pidge rolled their eyes at Lance, pulling their keycard out of their back pocket and passing it in front of the card reader. The door to their dorm room opened with a soft  _ swish _ , and their eyes scoped out the environment to see what was different.

It wasn’t until they had taken a few steps into the room that Lance tapped their shoulder and pointed at the TV. They looked at the entertainment system and saw a PlayStation 4 sitting in front of it.

“Okay. That’s cool.”

“But that’s not the best part. Turn it on.”

They looked over at Lance, who looked the perfect picture of innocence, before carefully placing their bag on their bed and sitting in front of the PS4. Going through the motions to set everything up, they were surprised when instead of the PlayStation logo, an Atari logo flashed by.

“What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything. I just came up with the idea and Hunk carried it all out. But just keep going.”

Their heart almost stopped when everything loaded and a plethora of retro video games popped onto the screen. They made a small whimpering sound as they scrolled through everything, knowing that the updated memory meant that there was so much more room for games than they could ever dream of.

“You really did this for me?”

They could feel Lance crouch down next to them, and a hand rested on their shoulder. “Like I said, Hunk did all the real tech stuff, but yeah. I wanted to do something for you.”

Pidge couldn’t stop the grin that overtook their face. “Wanna do another thing for me and take turns playing? Ten bucks says you’ll never beat my high score.”

“Oh you’re so on.”

An hour later found them screaming and wrestling for the controller, laughing hysterically as they each tried to cover the other’s eyes to sabotage their gameplay. If you asked either of them, they weren’t really sure whose turn it was to play, but it was the honor that counted, and they weren’t going to give up any time soon. Not until somebody won.

That somebody ended up being Pidge, with Lance clawing weakly at their hands  before dropping the controller and admitting defeat.

“Alright. Alright. I give. Please have mercy you fiendish goblin.”

“Hey! I’m not a goblin.”

“Dammit, you’re right. You’re too pretty to be a goblin.”

Pidge scoffed right into his ear, hands moving from his eyes down to his shoulders. “Please. Me, pretty?”

“Aw, come on. You don’t see it?” Lance twisted around, grabbing Pidge’s hand and pressing a light kiss into the back of it, smiling lazily at the flush that spread across their face. As he lowered their hand, he let his thumb rub gently across their knuckles. “I just can’t get over how brilliant you are, how when you see something you love, like that PlayStation, your whole face just lights up. You get this sparkle in your eyes that I know means you’re going to be MIA for a while, and it’s the most precious thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Lance-”

“And when you laugh, even when it’s that cackle, it just lights up my whole day because it’s so pure and full of joy. Then there are your freckles. Your freckles are the cutest little things. I know that you hate them, but every time I see them I just think about the old wives’ tale about how they’re angel kisses and I just know how those angels feel. You’re phenomenal, Pidge. I wish you’d see that.”

Lance took a deep breath, face warm and chest swelling with all the feelings that he’d finally let out, only for his heart to fall into his stomach when he saw the stormy expression on Pidge’s face.

“Pidge?”

“Lance. Stop. Just stop.”

“But-”

“No. You don’t get to do those things. You don’t get to say those things.”

“I don’t understand. Why not?”

Pidge pulled their hand out of Lance’s, standing suddenly, and Lance felt the sudden ache of the loss of that warmth. “Because you don’t mean any of it.”

Lance felt cold seep through every bone in his body. “What do you mean, I don’t mean it?”

“Because you never do. You go around and you think that you’re in love with all of these girls, so you flirt and you flirt, but you never really care about any of them. They’re just these pretty distractions. And then they leave and you move on to the next girl and you forget all about the girl before her. Well I’m not a girl. And I’m not someone whose feelings you can just toy around with.”

“Feelings?” Lance picked himself up off of the floor, slowly taking a step closer to Pidge and sighing when they took a step back away from him. “You mean I wasn’t just making a buffoon of myself just now? You really like me?”

Pidge clenched their jaw, looking down and to the side. They couldn’t look Lance in the eyes as they nodded.

Lance sighed. “Oh, Pidge. This isn’t how I wanted this to happen.”

He took another step forward, reaching out quickly and not letting Pidge run off. “Look at me. Please.”

Pidge still wouldn’t look at him.

“I’m asking as your friend. I’m sorry that I hurt you. I want to talk this out. Please, Pidge?”

Pidge chewed on the inside of their cheek for a moment as they considered, before nodding. They let Lance maneuver them so that they were sitting on the bed with their bodies towards each other, and when Lance’s warm hand gently cupped their chin to turn their head so that they were facing each other, they let it happen.

“Can I say what I really feel, and know that you’ll believe whatever I tell you?”

Pidge stared. “Why wouldn’t I believe you?”

“Because you’re going to think that I’m still flirting or that I’m not taking this seriously. But trust me when I say that I’m being one hundred percent serious right now and I’m speaking to you as a friend first and foremost. Sound good?”

Pidge nodded warily.

Lance took a deep breath. “I’ve had a really big crush on you since a little after you told me and Hunk that you’re a biological female and that you don’t identify with binary pronouns. Or… I’ve had a crush on you since before then, but I didn’t realize it until then. This whole thing, the PlayStation and the flirting, that was me trying to put out feelers to see how you felt because I wanted to ask you out on a date.”

Pidge stared. “I- You- Really?”

Lance smiled shyly, running his hand through his hair nervously. “Well, yeah. I wanted to do this right. I wanted to show you that I was serious, that I really cared about you, and that I really really wanted to go out with you.” His smile dropped, and he seemed to shrink in a little on himself though. “I guess that didn’t work out too well, though.”

“Nonono.” Pidge reached forward, grabbing one of Lance’s hands in both of theirs, holding onto it tight. Now that they knew, they couldn’t let this pass. They’d never forgive themselves. “I overreacted. I just thought you were joking around, playing a little joke on me about my crush on you, that you didn’t know how much it would hurt me. But I wasn’t thinking rationally. You’d- You’d never do that.”

Lance’s other hand covered theirs, and Pidge couldn’t look away, couldn’t tear their brain’s focus away from how  _ right _ it felt to be holding Lance’s hand. “Of course I wouldn’t.”

His voice was soft, caring, not accusatory, and Pidge suddenly wanted. “So… You were going to ask me out?”

Lance’s wide eyed wonder was a sight to behold, and Pidge couldn’t hold back their giddy grin either.

“Pidge?”

“Yeah?”

“Would you like to go on a date this Saturday? I’ll take you to the arcade and we’ll eat terrible food and you’ll kick my ass at all the games even though I’ll pretend to have beat you in at least one.”

Pidge twisted their mouth. “Depends. Can I use my tickets to win you a cheesy teddy bear?”

“Would it be a first date without one?”

Pidge groaned softly, letting go of Lance’s hands to trail their hands up their arms. “Okay so, I know we haven’t even gone on our first date, but I just… really want to kiss you right now.”

Lance sighed. “Oh thank god.”

The first meeting of their lips was clumsy, too much teeth, too short, and Lance whacked Pidge’s glasses halfway across their face. They burst into laughter, snorting softly as they leaned against each other.

“Oh my god that was terrible,” Pidge gasped.

“Yeah,” Lance agreed, wheezing.

They let themselves calm down, and Lance maneuvered Pidge into sitting on his lap. They smiled down at him, heart beating faster as they leaned down, much more slowly this time. Their kiss was better the second time around, more at ease, more right. Each kiss felt better and better, until Lance was laying back on the bed, with Pidge straddling his torso. His hand was on their bare waist, shirt having fallen up a few inches as they leaned forward to kiss Lance.

He finally pulled away, breathing heavily as Pidge breathed onto his neck. His other hand rested on their back, and he stared at the ceiling, heart feeling full.

“We should probably wait for the first date at least to get to second base,” he joked.

Pidge huffed. “I guess you’re right.” They rested their head on Lance’s shoulder for a while, letting themselves roll off of his body as they both rested.

Once they both caught their breath, Pidge reached down, grabbing Lance’s hand. “Hey, wanna see something cool?”

Lance turned his head, making a tired sound. “Mostly I just wanna sleep. What is it?”

“So I haven’t told anyone else about this, but I want to tell you about this. I made a thing to contact aliens with.”

That got Lance’s attention, and he sat up suddenly. “No way. Really?”

Pidge nodded. “Yeah. I’ve even been able to pick up some of their chatter. Apparently they’ve been looking for something called Voltron. Grab Hunk and I’ll show you two.”


End file.
